POST OFFICE OPEN SUNDAYS TO MOVE CHRISTMAS GLUT.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

The post office, deluged with mail every holiday season, beginning today will deliver gifts to customers in the Santa Clarita Valley and cities across the country by extending hours and opening on Sundays.

The special schedule takes effect at 11 a.m. today at the main post office, 24355 Creekside Road, where clerks will be on duty to mail packages, sell stamps and provide other services. Doors will stay open until 4:30 p.m., with the same hours set for Dec. 20.

Anticipating particularly heavy mail volume in the days leading up to Christmas, Santa Clarita and other selected post office branches will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Dec. 21.

Terri Bouffiou, a U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said the longer hours just make good business sense for their massive operation - and for the harried general public, rushing to finish shopping, to pack and ship gifts to loved ones and write Christmas cards before the yuletide deadline a dozen days from now.

The Postal Service began the extra staffing a few years ago, and this year more than two dozen sites in Los Angeles County will participate.

``It's been very popular with the customers, so we've continued doing it every year because people like it,'' Bouffiou said. ``The Mondays before Christmas are always our busiest days, so it occurred to us that if we would open the windows on Sunday - if we could funnel some of that mail - then we could get some of the people to come in earlier.

``What we're looking at is trying to get some of the (customer) traffic away from there at the peak times.''

But what is it about mid-December Mondays that prompt people to stuff the mail slots with cards and fill the postal bins with boxes of presents?

``Over the weekend, people prepare all of their cards,'' Bouffiou said. ``This is the weekend when people say, It's now or never. It's human behavior, and we've observed it over the years. We know from experience that it's just what happens.''

At the postal processing center in Santa Clarita, which also handles mail from post offices in the Antelope and San Fernando valleys, officials expect to process 2.3 million cards and letters Monday and an additional 2.2 million Dec. 21, Bouffiou said.

``On an average day, we cancel 1.1 million pieces of letter mail'' at the Santa Clarita plant, she noted. Nationwide, the average is a 50 percent increase in mail volume during the month of December compared with any other time of year.

Postal Service officials also are predicting that Americans will mail more packages this year than they did last year.

``For the rest of the country, they predict that package volume will be up 10 percent compared to last year's holiday season,'' Bouffiou said. ``But in Santa Clarita, we're projecting that center will handle 15 percent more volume.''

The Creekside Road post office also will have 10 hours of window service Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.